Sir Douglas MawsonPrint Page

The portrait bust commemorates the Antarctic explorer, Sir Douglas Mawson (1882 - 1958).

In 1905 Mawson was appointed lecturer in mineralogy and petrology in the University of Adelaide. He immediately became interested in the glacial geology of South Australia. Also, continuing his interest in radioactivity, he identified and first described the mineral davidite, containing titanium and uranium, in specimens from the region now known as Radium Hill. That deposit was the first major radioactive ore body discovered in Australia. The major work of his early South Australian period was his investigation of the highly mineralized Precambrian rocks of the Barrier Range, extending from the northern Flinders Ranges through Broken Hill, New South Wales.

In November 1907 (Sir) Ernest Shackleton, leader of the British Antarctic Expedition, visited Adelaide on his way south. Mawson approached him with a view to making the round trip to Antarctica on the Nimrod. His idea was to see an existing continental ice-cap and to become acquainted with glaciation and its geological consequences. Shackleton appointed him physicist for the duration of the expedition and this began his long association with the Antarctic.

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